money and influence a new report alleges that there is a covert multi-million dollar scheme to boost the popularity of the left at last the u.s. . top russian business executive is detained in italy after requests to washington in the afghan army and in attempts to steal american taxis. and the u.s. carries out military exercises in south america next to venezuela in line with its apparent strategy of surrounding the enemy we breakdown why the tactic isn't anything new.

it's 8 o'clock here in moscow and you watching at international live from off with me into the program. a newly released report by a conservative but watchdog alleges there's a covert multi-million dollar strategy to promote liberal values in the u.s. the document scheme to push certain topics from supporting obamacare to slamming donald transportable. takes a closer look at how it operates. what's more powerful in politics than money a strong candidate with a good program idealist would say nothing a realist would say but a politician would say dark money dark money is good millions of dollars that behind the scenes donors are spending to send the political train down the track and according to the left leaning media it's a you. but the bad thing because the conservatives do it because others have made

billions and want to ensure their government doesn't limit their ability to make more conservative donor david koch as one half of the koch brothers came to symbolize the influence of dark money in america but you know who's even better than conservatives that slipping the bills into their proteges pockets. democrats according to this research a group called arabella advisors l l c has been in the vanguard of the leftist money holes they shelter under their umbrella for nonprofit organizations by their nature they do not have to disclose who they're getting their money from but this research suggests that they've gathered a huge number of very wealthy donors some of the nation's largest grant making institutions including the rockefeller packard and koch foundations the donors to the funds managed by arabella it remains unclear why such large and powerful

institutions seek outside philanthropic consulting but presumably a significant part of our bill is appeal lies in its ability to obscure large financial transactions these for nonprofits have been showering and to conservative grassroots organizations with their money take this one with a name so noble calling our goal is to oppose and bring the term short list yes they get their pockets stuffed by 1633rd an offshoot of our bell advisors another group save my care has been pushing against republican attempts to repeal obamacare the president is sabotaging the system. will be another uncertainty in health care. remember this it led to this. we won't forget.

well their financial bad bone is made up by bills coming from a nother arabella advisors sprout the new venture fund the dark money is not a trick exclusively from the democrat playbook yes it's been revealed they do outperform the conservatives when it comes to the amount spent by more than 20 percent in fact but pro republican donors. do that too and according to the research media coverage is way out of balance with most outlets reserving a good bashing for the conservatives when you look at the mainstream media which has deservedly declining part of a declining viewership both the editorial in the production staff is chiefly and the anchors are chiefly democrats or democrat leaning so of course out of the mainstream media you're going to get that narrative reality is the independents and the rising anti-corruption anti-crime only part voting populace the united states is against the use of dark body is against the use of corruptly having foundation's

reality is that a lot of money comes in from unions from particularly from the public sector unions to their favorite politicians both legally and i think illegally but there has been a rise now of dark money and dark money is bad whether it's right or left leaning i mean the public has a right to know each individual's vote counts and that it can't be swamped by the activities of partisan groups that are illegally sourcing and donating money so next time you see a nonprofit banner stirring up a fight for yet another democratic staple remember regardless of what side of the political spectrum would comes from it's not just people but billionaires fortunes behind it too. as anger rushes and in the united states after a russian executive was detained in italy at washington's request he's been charged

with suspected international espionage against an american aviation company alexander. is a a director at a key russian engine manufacturer has claimed he conspired to steal trade secrets with an italian director a vacation both men were arrested in 1000 southern italy that. take a look at exactly what the men are accused of conspiring and trying to steal intellectual property belonging to g. aviation relating to aircraft engines production the us justice department says caution of hired a star from the company as technical consultants those employees then allegedly filed a report containing sensitive details vladimir putin's hit out of the u.s. over the arrest saying it threatens to worsen relations even further. practical this is very bad practice it complicates our bilateral relations and i'm not joking we often see no reason for hostile actions of this kind moreover i have every

reason to believe that sometimes these actions are connected with unfair competition including in the aerospace industry if there is some kind of criminal activity here then it's our law enforcement agencies that should cooperate to united states has made similar list before arresting foreign citizens in a 3rd country the chief financial officer of china attacked and while a lot of us in canada understand of a panel of washington's request we've been getting reaction from global politics analysts about the ramifications of. this is obviously titian i think all major powers now realize that competition for technological superiority in the future will be so we're almost be decisive in major power competition the united states certainly adopts the

and america 1st strategy and that are not sounding ministration and it is more interest in seeking an advantage is. rather an engaging economic cooperation and the expansion of say less than it was and so on it emphasizes the fact that high tech is a serious problem for the no stage for china for russia for every country now because everyone is trying to gain actually is to every other country's high tech and there's a tremendous competition going on and therefore the americans are saying right warning everyone you want prayer price if you in fact state our secrets but from the american board of view it's quite difficult for them to prosecute someone. in a 3rd country or gain access to the person who they're accused of stealing their high tech secrets. washington seems to be improving its relationship with

the latin american nation that borders and it is launched a so-called humanitarian outreach program led by the air force there to provide some services to locals but also contacts training for military personnel and their business in neighboring venezuela and circled by american bases just months after the u.s. backed opposition fell to achieve regime change in caracas our senior correspondent mark gasnier examines washington's tactics. the u.s. military has returned to guyana after many years on a joint military exercise slash humanitarian mission there's nothing quite like a humanitarian mission led by guys who specialize in bombing things it's like having a drug rehab center run by drug lords but small details the important thing is that guyana is important to you on a sits in a strategic location on the north edge of south america and on the caribbean and

the look what a coincidence borders very i mean what are the chances of that the same venezuela that has us bases all around it here here here here brazil is in that it's open to hosting a u.s. military base a mile and israel is like the center of a donut of u.s. bases same venezuela that the u.s. has threatened repeatedly where it is trying to spark regime change and which it is encircled with guns just in case trump decides to pull the trigger it's over even though frankly it could be toppled very quickly by the military or the military to do you'd think entirely surrounding nations you don't like might be a bit overkill but it's the pressure. the psychological pressure that matters the promise is easier when the guys you are negotiating with always have something to fear specifically about their country being burned down if they say the wrong thing

and it isn't just venezuela i mean look at iran as no way to check a chewing gum wrapper without hitting a u.s. marine on the nose which come to think of it they could well use as an excuse to invade iran a few months ago trump even sent more troops to the region just in case they left an empty spot at which iran could through a chewing gum wrapper and china or for the faint of heart one gets the impression that there are more u.s. troops around in china than there are u.s. troops left in the united states but don't have the map fool you for america that isn't enough the us needs to develop alternative operates in the cations the pentagon will continue to develop new concepts build a distributed and resilient force posture and field new capabilities to counter these threats honestly the drug metaphor seems remarkably apt the pentagon recently

boasted that it has luke asians in more than 160 countries after some sort of military presence in 84 percent of the countries on this planet and yet not enough they just need more crave more. new coalition government has sent prosecutors on to the ousted former interior minister mateo salvini immigration firebrand is accused of conducting a smear campaign and inciting violence against a german refugee ship captain across the forester's correspondent charlotte salvias portions of 30 turned although he's not exactly crying about it is he. well that's right we know that this a libel case has been launched by prosecutors in rome against italy's former interior minister also to these former deputy prime minister. now this

all relates to captain carolyn racket a german captain of sea watch 3 which is charity ship that is being working in the mediterranean and picking up migrants and then trying to bring them to wood's europe now. is accused of inciting violence against the captain against the captain of that charity rescue ship now this mainly relates to events that took place in the summer in july when karolyn a record and ship the sea watch 3 picked up $53.00 migrants in the mediterranean she then tried to dock boat on italian soil she was denied blocking that docking that was one of the policies of matteo salvini whilst he was immigration minister to try and interior minister to try and crack down on illegal immigrants coming to italy and while she tried to dock and she was denied she tried again and there was

this incident where the see what's 3 actually rammed into a buddha control vessel now she later landed in lamp do you said the italian island where she was arrested now salvini accused of trying to sink that patrol boat with those italian. border control agents on board and he described that incident and what she did as being an act of war now she was later released then she was put under house arrest a court then said that she had done nothing illegal but she is still facing charges of helping illegal immigration something that you know is taken very seriously particularly and the last coalition government in italy now salvini at the time when this was all happening he was on twitter something we know he likes to do but he said things such as describing carolyn a record as being a criminal

a delinquent he went on to say that the poor woman tried to kill 5 italian soldiers in that incident i just mentioned and he says despite everything that's happened he still stands by sweets. denounced by a german communist the immigrant's ram to finance gods but. it's a muddle for me i'll never give up. well mattera salvini is one of italy's most popular politicians poll last the poll show that he hands down has touched out and reached the italian people there somebody that they seem to trust and he was relying on that popularity when he pulled the plug on the coalition government with the 5 star movement to see a snap election in which he hoped he would win that's not happened and what we've seen this is former coalition partners now joining forces with a very different party that is from the left and that is the democratic party now

both these 2 parties who formed this no new coalition party which is really on tenterhooks and many people are sort of waiting to see if it will unravel and where that will italy will have a snap election coming up in the next few months material salvini and his popularity is a thaw in the government's side so i'm sure they're going to be rubbing their hands with glee at the moment with the idea of any litigation any legal action being taken by against terror cell be any and for them hopefully bringing him down a peg or 2 improperly possibly reducing that popularity. they have there are to charlotte do vent. some of the world's biggest oil corporations to spend $50000000000.00 on projects that undermine the climate god according to a report by financial think tank carbon tracker and while a climate activists insist large companies and governments should come up with

proper initiatives to tackle the problem it seems some experts proposals are pretty radical. the main official initiative is the 2015 paris climate agreement it was ratified by

185 states and outlined measures countries should take to limit global warming but most of the signatories have failed to live up to the commitments donnell quarter discussed the issue with a panel of experts. the powers to call the us not legally binding there was no reason for anyone to stick to it they can do what they like and they carried on doing what they were like. i'm afraid we're in the grip of a series of systems which are putting profit before everything and they're going to wring the last drop of profit out of all the old world industries such as the fossil fuel industries we've known about this problem we've known about c o 2 we've known about me thing we know about the feedback loops we've known about the effect on the ice sheets capitalism is have plenty of time to solve this problem but i'm afraid it hasn't dealt with it so we have to start dealing with capitalism the only way we're going to do that is by taking radical action on the streets i've been on

the streets myself with extinction rebellion and the people come up to us on there with us u.k. for example that was a lot about tourism. you know in the last 20 years in running up to 2008 when the law was passed called the climate change act that was supposed to deal with the problem and hold the government and all future governments to hold their feet to the fire in terms of doing what's required. and that was certainly the result of a lot of different you know different environmental groups and you know hundreds of thousands of people marching repeatedly so i think you know we have seen change but it's just nowhere near enough to tackle the crisis at scale do you as a climate scientist feel that the activists play a serious role in the in the development of towards a solution for climate change problem with the extension of the extension barely end is that. not what i want now is agent to make change it means the government the public and this is going to make massive changes to make this

happen we've got ourselves into a situation scientists and they're warning about the blockades and this isn't going to be something that we can just make it quick they are on the way it's going to be a long haul of i'm going to need to was this insight last consumes less consumes differently we get we think a lot of economy and that is not there and i write that without some impacts i think that people the public and politicians aren't quite aware of the drastic changes we need to start reducing our carbon emissions and one of the things that i think we need to consider which is nothing more to to many people in the green movement is that we we increase our use of nuclear and i know many in the green movement don't like this but really the only country that ever successfully decarbonise to. put is france and they did it in the 1960 s. and 1970 s.

by by going for nuclear power. why i don't think people are ready to cut their energy use worldwide since 970 we've seen worldwide energy use increased dramatically. that we're not going to be able to persuade people to reduce their energy use one of the only ways i think we're going to combat climate change is to for both renewables on nuclear to provide alternative sources because i just don't think people are ready to use with too addicted to our lifestyles. and with the ongoing trade war between the united states and china many lines have been drawn and boundaries set and now a former fox news host is being accused of colluding with the enemy after her line of patriots yoga which she say stands for american values as found to be made in

china. absolutely we don't want to be into the chinese we don't want to be their servants. and again someone needs to make trying out playing fair to be ongoing discussions about russia russia russia what we really should be looking at is china. running them out of business so they can buy cheap foreign beef the american consumer deserves better. whether or not they're going to put it down when i'm not going to put their phone in it really doesn't matter it's about freedom it's about the bill of rights it's about constitutional freedom that's what this whole line is about that box office about it's not going to support and spread for a long time for the. some

stories making headlines around the world for you now starting in the southern african country of zimbabwe robert mugabe zimbabwe's former president has died at the age of 95 he led the country for 37 years until he was forced to resign in 2017 in parts of africa he was renowned as a fighter for freedom being among the founders of a free zimbabwe however in the international community mccarthy became notorious for brutal human rights abuses corruption and running a barbaric dictatorship. in russia's far east hundreds of emergency workers have been taking part in ongoing rescue operations severe flooding continues to hit the area surrounding the more river in the region heavy rain to fall and from early

august more than 100 residential buildings remain underwater things are improving that but only slowly say the weather service. and after years of struggling against widespread reform more than 60 social organizations took a stand against the chilean government on thursday the plan a demonstration in santiago was against what the groups of called slipping education standards and also social and workers' rights the authorities in the capital used tear gas and other tactics to disperse the protesters. again is now over outer space and the quick plug for one of our shows on that day is there life on mars british cosmologist and astronomer royal martin rees talks to sophie shevardnadze about the possibility of living organisms there and future missions to the red planet. we could have a world that provides a decent life for all the 7 and a half a 1000000000 people in it and at the moment we have

a couple of 1000000000 in abject poverty and some people immensely wealthy and the fact that the richest 2000 people in the world have the resources to double the income of the bottom 1000000000 in the world and this is not happening is an ethical indictment i do think that by the end of a century there will be a few while the crazy adventurers who may be living away from being on mars and of course they will be ill adapted to that habitats and so they will be the people who will have the incentive. and the opportunity because their way through the regulators to enhance themselves and adapt themselves so i think if we imagine some species emerging which is different from he would be it will the birds from those crazy people on mars we now know that most of the stars in the sky orbit should by retinues of planets just as the sun is orbited by the earth and held of

media planets and we certainly know that many of those planets are going to be rather like the earth in terms of temperature and sides and so their potential abodes their life. or. are. a funny thing now i'll be back in around 30 minutes time with more updates to stay with us. after almost 2 decades of war naki patient american military involvement in afghanistan appears to be winding down a deal with the taliban will see the majority of american troops leave while still allowing a sizable contingent to remain just what exactly is washington's geopolitical

interests to be in afghanistan america's longest ever. during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was most of my family were employed. there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectives listen today but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. there was a real sense of hope. there isn't today today's america was shaped by the turn principles of concentration of wealth and power. reduced democracy attacks. engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to. one set of rules for the rich opposite. that's what happens when you put her into the. sector of will switch

is dedicated to increasing power for chills just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. seem wrong. to stamp out. attitude and it. equals the trail. when some find themselves while the party. just of the common ground. this is. one of the most important issues if not the most important issue that

humanity needs to be talking about. and we have nobody wants to talk about it because everybody's scared to talk about it everybody knows that it's a you know an emotional issue and such a personal you know subject. and people are scared so people just don't talk about it and that's sad but. in our species survival is truly dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can't even talk about it if we can't even have a conversation about it then. we're in trouble. when i was studying biology at the university of california in san diego i had

a bio chemistry professor that one day came into class and told all the students to close their books and said we're not going to talk about biochemistry today we're going to watch a film about population and i was probably about 20 years old and i remember just being completely devastated by what i learned in that film and i walked across the entire campus talking to my professor about human population and i really decided on that day that i didn't want to contribute to our rapidly growing population and really every environmental issue that we face ocean acidification and climate change habitat destruction pollution species extinction loss of biodiversity the collapse of ecosystems all of these things are accelerated by our rapidly growing population growing up i never really was planning towards having.